The issue is pretty simple: Can a local government begin its public meetings with prayers that are highly sectarian.

That's how it is in the Town of Greece. The Rochester suburb has practitioners of many faiths — or none at all — and the prayers are virtually always led by an evangelical Protestant minister.

The issue is now before the U.S. Supreme Court in Town of Greece v. Galloway. Susan Galloway and Linda Stevens — an atheist and a Jew — argue that the town prayer violates the separation of church and state required by the First Amendment and that it makes it difficult for members of minority faiths to take their issues before the Town Board.

A Jew wearing yarmulke, a Sikh in a turban or a Catholic priest with his collar on might feel uncomfortable petitioning the town government after such a prayer. This is why I helped write a Friend of the Court brief to help protect religious freedom in this upstate town.

More than half a century ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New York's "Regents Prayer" was unconstitutional as were other prayers led by teachers in public schools. This does not mean children cannot pray silently at their seats whenever they want — indeed, as long as there are math tests there will be prayer in public schools. What it does mean is that the government cannot tell us when to pray, what to pray or how to pray.

Ironically, many Americans who argue for smaller government and complain about large bureaucracies are nevertheless advocates of government involvement in sectarian religious practice. A decade ago Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama put a 2½-ton Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the state's Supreme Court building. I served as an expert witness in the case against Moore. When we won, the federal court ordered him to take down the monument. He complained about "big government" telling him what to do. Paradoxically, he was imposing on the people of Alabama his version of the Ten Commandments as the "correct" one and fought to keep this explicitly religious (and sectarian) monument in the Supreme Court building.

There is no single version of the Ten Commandments or an agreed-upon translation. Jews, Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Orthodox Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses all have different translations. Any version of them is sectarian and essentially chooses sides in theological disputes. This is one reason why the U.S. Supreme Court has never cited the Ten Commandments in an opinion or used it as a source of law.

The odd thing is why people of faith would want the government to write prayers, tell us when to pray or declare what texts are truly sacred. In the 1630s Roger Williams, the founder of the Baptist Church in America, rejected the idea of government-sponsored prayer. He understood that prayers should not be part of the political process. He knew that faith would suffer if politicians became involved in establishing religious observance or belief.

Is the Town of Greece a "holier" place because its meetings begin by forcing all people in the room to listen to (and bow their heads) for a particular sectarian prayer? What happens next year if there is a different majority, and different prayers? What happens if the town suddenly has a non-Christian majority? The lesson of history is that religion is best protected when it is left in private hands. History also teaches that government turns into a tyranny when it forces religion on its citizens.